iD14 - Digital Input Setup

November 04, 2014 16:55

Making two pieces of equipment talk nicely to each other is often what trips people up. It is all about making sure that one unit is the master and the other is the slave. A common way to tell that it isn’t set up correctly is pops and clicks in the audio. If you want to know a bit more about clocking (it is a very important thing to know about if you are wanting to get into audio) then please read our support article explaining what it is all about: Clocking Explained

So we know that we need a master and a slave, we need to know which is which. The iD14 only has a digital input and so cannot be the master of other equipment, so it must be the slave. Setting the iD14 up to be the slave is just a case of going into the system panel and in the “Preferred Clocking Source” section, select external. This means that if there is a clock signal on the optical input, iD14 will automatically try and sync with it. The status light in this section tells you whether or not there is a valid clock source on the digital input:

Red - There is no clock signal present on the digital input. If you have something plugged in and are expecting a clock signal, check all your cabling.

Yellow - There is a clock source present however there is a mismatch so you need to check the sample rate of your external device and iD14/DAW and make sure that they are the same.

Green - Everything is good!

You will also need to specify the type of digital information you want to receive, whether it be ADAT or S/PDIF in the "Digital In" section otherwise you will have audio issues.

To set the external device to master will depend on the device that you are using, but normally there is an int/ext switch or a sample rate select on it. Using the AS880 as an example, you would simply select the sample rate that you want to be working in on the front of the unit. Once the external equipment is set to master and the iD14 set to slave (and the sample rates match), you should be able to pass audio through and in the iD app System panel, the status light should be a solid green.

If you have any issues, is worth making sure in the computer system settings that the sample rate is set correctly:

On a PC (with the iD14 selected as the computer’s sound source) this can be done by right clicking on the small speaker icon in the system tray and then clicking on the image of the speaker that pops up. This takes you to the Windows soundcard settings menu. You want to navigate to “Advanced” and then change the default sample rate to the one that you are using.

On a Mac (with the iD14 again selected as the computer source) open “Audio MIDI Setup”. When it opens make sure that it is the Audio window that you are looking, if not go to Window then select Show Audio Window. Here check that the sample rate for the iD is set to the correct sample rate (and if it is not then change it).

Now you should be able to pass audio from your external device into the iD app. Making sure that you have the Digital Panel selected, check to see if there is sound coming through on the “Digi” channels. From here you should be able to access these channels in your DAW as inputs 3 and above.

It is worth noting that when you are working in sample rates above 48kHz (i.e. 88.2kHz and 96kHz) then you will only get a maximum of 4 channels come through via ADAT instead of the normal 8 channels when using 44.1kHz or 48kHz. This is due to the way in which SMUX handles the data. S/PDIF is always stereo and will work up to 96kHz.